FINAL FINAL WORKS WORKS
An Evening at the Hargrett Rare Books & Special Collections Library with Judith Ortiz Cofer's Advanced Creative Writing Class Fall 2012
Table of Contents 3: All Manner of Herbes, Rootes, and Fruites by Katherine Arnold
4: Tutu Found: Potential Clue in Search for Missing Ohio Teen by Kellie Dickinson
5: Prisoner in the Glass Tomb by Ashten Goeckel
7: To Watch the World Sway by Blair Ivey
8: Being a Man by Emily Metz
10: As She Looks to Him by Matthew Noxsel
11:Creating You by Allie Ritter
12:Twisted Metal by Ross Ruello
13:This is How to Make Dirty Work Look Clean by Brittany Scott
14:One String by Morgan Scott
16: Guilt by Association By Fiona Sheehan
18: Battle Grounds by Kaitlyn Spotts
20: The Clay Eater by Julia Stacy
21: Heirlooms by Rachel Stoker
22: Blow Oskar by Shannon Stults
23: Bits of Us by W illiam W ickey
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All Manner of Herbes, Rootes, and Fruites by Katherine Arnold
Based on "Paradis in Sole,” John Parkinson
He wanders among the rows of herbs, leaning slightly forward and prepared to inspect a particular species or stake a drifting vine. Turning the corner of a garden trestle, he calls to his wife to sweep the garden corners for fallen soil. Without his unforgiving preoccupation with tidiness, other seeds would take root on the ground, outside of the diagrammed system, and prevent any of the medicinal discoveries; without order, his studies would degenerate to mere hobby-work and aimless puttering. The rigorous schedule he follows—his daily devotion, like lighting the candles for their children’s illnesses—has yielded a compilation of discoveries for each plant and its properties: Lilium Perficum, Fritillaria Alba, Crocus Vernus. As he paces across the flagstones he adds annotations to the papers in his hands. In the new medicines, he foresees the miracle of healing, of relieving pain—the seeds of opium even cure the shakings and fits of anxiety, such as those his wife suffers, before he had prescribed and administered small doses. The beautiful geometric precision, the progressive stages of the herbs captured in diagrams, almost encapsulates the fluidity of life. She swallows, throat convulsing against the grainy liquid, and he holds her hands until the tremors cease and then records the date and length of her episode. Each seed holds the key to the aches and pains of humanity, and only intense observation might yield the answer—imagine, the answers to illnesses and rejuvenation, under the dirt and the feet of London! The papers rattle in his hands as a fit of shaking, barely perceptible, passes over him. These brief episodes, if ignored and untreated, will return in greater intensity and he straightens up from his previous position over some herbs. He reminds himself of the written dedication in his book, claiming the separation of these experiments from creation and true authority; he, of humble origin, is just the explorer. These sciences could trip the careless, the unwary, and one could be drawn too close to creation, like a botanist drawn to the trumpet lilies and intoxicated by the purple intensity of the petals and bent, slender stems, and a human thus caught, overcome with the fragrance, would strain his eyes to study the dimly visible formations inside the bell-shaped flower and lose himself in the dizzying passages of discovery, in following curiosity to the origin.
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Tutu Found: Potential Clue in Search for Missing Ohio Teen by Kellie Dickinson Based on Grady Hospital Tunnel (Ca. 1936)
Please. Please. Please don't come down here. The slow creak of the door warns me that he’s on his way. I brush off my tutu and ballet shoes while I shake in nauseous anticipation. He towers over me, grabs my emaciated shoulders, and commands me to look into his eyes the entire time. Those soulless eyes haven't changed since the day he found me leaving dance practice. He still demands me to dance for him every day. It pleases him. I have to please him. I feel bile heat up into my throat, but I squeak out an “I love you too” before he climbs back up that ladder. If I don't keep his trust, then he will keep maiming me with one of those splintered boards flanking my room. When the piercing sound of his steel-toed boots reaches the top of the ladder, I force myself to stifle a scream and hold my breath until my predator trudges on. I hear him lock the soundproof door to the outside and my body shocks to attention when I rub the leathered scars on my legs and face to remind myself to obey him for a little longer. Until I can get out. I count to ten, hoping that I am safe, then release my breath through my nose without making a sound. Relief. For now. This morning, I need to hammer another stake among the others that line the rotten ground of this cage. I’m up to fifty-seven stakes – one for every week I’ve made myself exist down here. To remember the days, I count the times the single spotlight illuminates this godforsaken chamber. In the mornings, the menacing lamp dangling from the ceiling clicks on, waking me with a glowing rage. My makeshift sun is the only light I have known for the past fifty-seven stakes. I crumble from my knees on to this dusty ground without even a bed or any pillows to protect me from this unbearable soil. I attempt to cover myself with the oversized rag he rewarded me with for not crying one time. It took me forty-five stakes, but I finally stopped trying to fight it. I’ve learned to play his little game, to be his “little ballerina.”
I’m running out of time. I’m running out of stakes. Someone hear me. Please.
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Prisoner in the Glass Tomb by Ashten Goeckel
It was but a few brief moments of my time, just a flimsy sheet of written words and an image of the man I used to be, that now lie as if of some importance encased in the history of a past presidency. a weathered relic in a glass tomb Dust of canons has settled into dust of antiquity of a war, of a president, of an era I beg my spectators not repeat. They gaze at the eloquence of my hand those eyes that never beheld my cannibalistic war, brother devouring brother’s flesh at my command. Their memory of my history captivates because of a famous bullet, but they forget those whom bullets killed long before my death. To them, 618,000 is a six-figure number but for me, it is my sixth circle of hell, a home for my heresy, for my sin in the dissent of a divorced nation; brother killing brother for a divided domain They remember me for my words on an enshrined piece of paper a vestige from a time when I exchanged souls like carte de visite. They know of Alexander and his nephew, members of the Southern realm, prisoners of my war John was the captive, but neither Stephens escaped. for the scars of battle eluded none as the nation divided to devour its own. These onlookers know my history that my letter did not reach Stephens’ hands before a bullet riddled my mind. Death became my freedom after I resided in my prison those four years. The prison of my agony the iron cage of singing bullets, of the whispering dead, of the crying mothers, complete with a carnage-covered floor. They will not see how I suffered
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writing my letters with the red ink bleeding onto pages, my condolences for the dead written on the scraps of a nation. No, they cannot see my prison, a past that encases me still. Because when they read my letters, history cannot die with the dead. They know not that my words were but a salve to soothe the burn from that demon Guilt hidden in my hat as I overlooked bloody hills and valleys the earth a dingy flag, red painted on the grey and blue.
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To Watch the World Sway by Blair Ivey Based on WPA Photograph from Cochran, Georgia taken in 1936
You kept Hope. Even after your father’s whiskered lips whispered that he’d lost his job. Even though you had no idea where to look for it. Even after the years passed and his eyes glazed over, you kept Hope locked deep inside your ribcage. You had Hope, so you watered the wilting flowers and beat the rug until the dust filtered the landscape gray. At dinner each night, you forced your teeth into crooked rows, but he was afraid to waste air laughing - stirring up the dust that settled on his shoulders, darkened his wrinkles, and clouded his chest. You had Hope, so when your father swapped his slippers for work boots and the neighbors started paying you to watch their children, you thought it was over. You thought you could carry phantoms of those kids home with you and set them on the rug where they’d dust of his eyes with flapping tongues. You still had Hope, but those phantoms stained your lips before they reached him, the bitter taste foreign to you but so familiar to him, and you wondered if there was anything left to wash out his mouth. You still have Hope, but even these kids don’t waste air laughing singing skipping sliding jumping dancing running. You watch them and you know that they don’t swing to fly. They swing to watch the world sway - to kick it with their toes - to feel the air rush to feel the air move to feel anything move outside their bodies and their homes where their mothers and fathers sit as stiff as yours. Now you think Hope’s name is Hard or Heavy. You want to pull it from the hole between your lungs and throw it so nothing like Hope can lock itself inside you again. Maybe if you pull it out and throw it high into the sky these children will swing to grab it, swing to fly.
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Being a Man by Emily Metz Based on a picture from an interview with John Wayne from the Arnold Michaelis Library of Living History found in the Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection.
The man is framed in cowboy boots and a hat, the top three buttons of his shirt undone, gristly dark hairs longing to be exposed to be noticed. The man can trade in his dirt covered bandana for a clean and ironed tie nestled in layers of perfectly straight dress shirts and blazers that his wife has ironed. The man talks real slow making sure his voice stays real low like his feet, each step real low close to the ground. The man will look you in the eye enter your body rip the power from you because Men deserve it more. What the man doesn’t do is look away doesn’t feel small, isn’t buried underneath expectations and so-called truths that everyone is born knowing. The man won’t think about another man, when he’s holding a girl’s hand, and won’t shake his head like he’s shaking out how he feels, like he’s shaking out what he knows because he doesn’t know what it seems everyone knows. The man’s hidden desires aren’t longing to be exposed,
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to be noticed. The man will not want to cry, because it’s not allowed, because the man on tv doesn’t cry, or sob or show any emotion. He’s not hot with passion and desire only hot like the deserts he stands in during another action shot for another movie about Men shooting Bad Guys, because only Men survive. Confident, muscles outlined in wrinkled clothes, eyes affixed in a direction that can’t be seenA pretty girl waves, he knows he will not die because only Men survive.
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As She Looks to Him by Matthew Noxsel
while she cradles the child the muscles of her arms tense proportionate to the weight of blood released by epiphany: the dream was true. She had seen this white man, balanced, holding a bible, shouting a sublime rhythm of speech; then a winged apparition pointing at a bleeding lamb upon a slate. She told her husband a year ago, remembers the gravity of his brows over his face the patchy dark stubble on his chin lit by the flat hue of morning coal. She knows he is avoiding her eyes, trying to focus on the words, and she imagines the movements of his mind as a young boy who traces birds on buck skin, careful, learning that whatever he draws will be redrawn. Her jaw hangs by the seam of her lips saving a connection between the upper and lower flesh as the man behind her says the slaughtered lamb is alive again and the fiends that back her tribe have lied to men. During the silence that follows she notices his chest tighten and release like a crackle of tobacco letting out a wisp. She knows what he has not admitted, does not want to admit, but has always felt: an invisible presence, unnamed, singular and nearer than the spirits of animals and trees, a wind which has always blown and could carry him forever. Her child thrusts a foot against her chest, and the low echoed thump shifts his eyes to hers.
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Creating You by Allie Ritter Based on a Costume Design Sketch by Paul Seltenhammer
Every face I draw is yours. The one that was painted with watercolors on my memory, the last instance before you turned away from me. That day designs flowed through my paintbrush. That day I reclaimed you as my image, my model, and nothing else. You only wilted under my touch. Your skin paled and marred. You lost the immediacy of loving me, only to be replaced by contentment of security. But, on the page you blossom from amethyst petals and cerulean folds of silk. You have blonde hair sometimes, brown, blue for the ostrich plumage, or cut in that silly new fashion of a bob that all the modern women don. But the face is always yours. Your accusing eyes, your taut lips, your knowing forehead wrinkle. This is the only reality I ever needed you in. The only reality where you mattered to me. The reality I lost when I joined yours. A layer more to undress and redress and still you are not complete. You never were. You always needed something more, something I couldn't draw on you or kiss to life. If only I could have added one more layer or taken something off I could've stayed, but I like you better on paper.
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Twisted Metal by Ross Ruello Based on a photo of Fidel Castro at a Microphone in the Media Section of the Hargrett Library
In Havana, below the red, white, and blue lies the star, the hammer, and the sickle. Flashes, cheers, cries emerge from the crowd as he exclaims, “And so much talk to justify the justifiable, to explain the inexplicable, and to reconcile the irreconcilable!” He grasps my body, his grip tightening, suffocating as his words twist, screw, contort like my own metal. His soggy lips, the stench of his sweaty, black beard hanging like Spanish moss, the red words, “Only death can liberate one from so much misery,” spit, spew, shoot from his mouth and onto and through my head, leaving me stupefied, paralyzed, obligatory. I stand frozen, powerless because without his bloody words, the sounds emanating from his soggy mouth, the stressed vowels surging through my diaphragm, I remain wasted, meaningless, expendable. “History will absolve me!” he concludes, my chords amplifying the finality of his cry. His noose loosens, fingers hanging off my handle as he flees the podium unrestricted, independent, liberated but I endure, a prisoner to his opinions, beliefs, and a wall socket. I hope history will absolve me because I’m only just his microphone.
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This is How to Make Dirty Work Look Clean by Brittany Scott Woman Washing Clothes, Robert E. Williams' 1872 Photographic Collection
You always have to smile. Smile when you walk and when you wait and when you work. You smile when you're early and when you're late. Smile big when you're happy and bigger when you're not. And always, always smile in public. When you're out in the yard washing clothes, smile. Don't look at the water; its calm distracts your pace. The wind wades the small pool, creating waves so subtle that they form a reflection of your face, a startling image that stops you from concentrating on the clothes you scrub. Look up and smile. See the chaos in the trees, the bare areas where limp branches once were. See the crisp leaves reaching for each other attempting to build a shade for shame. Look at nature's limbs, don't stare at your hands. Your hands bear the truth of too much time passed, too many memories missed. And the water makes them wrinkle. And the clothes weigh them down. And the scrubbing numbs your skin till you can't feel any fabric of the sweaters dropping knit knots into the sudsy waves. So, look up and smile. Don't bend down, making spine is too slanted. That's how you get a bad back. Stand up before you ruin your posture. Stand up and smile, child. Stop huffing and puffing. Breathe soft whispering breaths with less panic and more passion. And scrub the clothes harder, get them cleaner. Make the water warmer. Those kids are depending on you. The clothes are slipping in between your fingers. Spots are going unscrubbed. Your hands are being two selfless broken dams. Tighten your joints, squeeze the fabric, suffocate the clothes with your palms and pick out every dirt speck that lives in the woven cloth. Clean it all. Get the smell out. Smile, smell the clothes, and then get the smell out. Your senses are only picking up the scent of sweet cheeks, but there's spoiled milk in those shirts. Scrub, squeeze, twist, rinse. Repeat. Repeat. Get it out. Hold the clothes up, make sure they look clean. Check the water before adding new clothes, make sure it looks clean. Balance your weight evenly on both legs, make your work look clean. Stand up, Child. Smile. Look Clean.
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One String by Morgan Scott Based on the Banjo in the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection
In the beginning one was four and I was one. One shape and noise and nature I traveled through ears and bars curled around dusty porches with creaking floorboards And I made Music. The first string snapped with a screech and reeled back like a whip through the air to slice through dermis to line the skin and then a curling halo at my temples and I—down to the and I—down to the and I—down down down—I clatter to the ground—dust in the grain of my—dirt ground into my pelt—animal skin stretched thin over wood, over bone. Bloody hand descends to wrap around my thin neck, lifting me with expletives and I am shoved in a drawer. My wood splinters and I displace the dust. The second goes a decade later, tiny chubby fingers rubbing oil into my cracking skin they pluck at the three that are left and I sing my song to the gray room but I am not tuned—tuned too long my strings are strained the skin is cracked and the song
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is broken. And the second—the next— the second—the second rears back—hurls forward, twists away and the child screeches chubby fingers releasing and I fall and the creaking floorboards vibrate bow in and out, launching dust and dirt to hover like ash in the light. The door slams into my hollow base and I skid into the corner, tumble end over end to the wall where the third pings quietly from the bottom in penance. In the end I am one. My song plays with one string but no one can hear it though the glass.
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Guilt by Association By Fiona Sheehan
Even in Georgia it’s cold in February. She powdered her face on The morning. The 18 morning. Soon her hardened face felt smooth as chalk, smooth as it did when she was 23. On this day 18 years ago she had worn the sparkling tiara that sat on her dressing table, waiting for another head now, not hers. She thought of the contestants and knew which one would win. This town was predictable – it always was and always would be. That’s what she liked about it. Unlike larger towns, she would always be remembered, even in middle age. The young people still respected her. The girls tried to be her. She turned her thoughts to this year’s contestants. All were Association nominees except for one girl - Mary Newton. She was a concern. The girl certainly was plucky to have entered, but this happened every four or five years. Some girl from outside of the Association thought she would enter just to be rebellious. Just to see how far she got. None of the girls outside of the Association actually cared about the pageant and what it stood for. Hell, they and their families didn’t even care about the town. She wasn’t really worried. Only one other time had a girl like Mary made it to the final round, but she had suddenly become ill right before walking onto the sleek black stage. Must have been nerves. She glanced at her clock and, seeing that it was quarter to noon, put the tiara in its box and quickly slipped into her heels. In her haste she knocked over a bottle of turpentine that she had been mixing into some paint earlier to repaint her house a fresh shade of forget-me-not blue. Cursing out loud, she stooped down to pick it up. Then anger turned to surprise as realization dawned on her. She dabbed at the overflow on the bottle, slowly, lost in thought, then quickly stowed it away in her purse. On that day, the whole town turned out for the second time in the history of the pageant. Members of the Association brought coffee and cake and sat in their fine dresses and suits on blankets on their side of the lawn. With only one other major festivity in the month of February – the Valentine’s Day Festival – the beauty pageant was one of the biggest events of the season and for once, everyone could participate, whether they were in the Association or not. The other half of the town sat in their working clothes with their thermoses of soup and tea. Most of them would not have even taken off of work if one of their own wasn’t represented. But the factories and offices had shut down this year and there was an unspoken tension in the air that made Association members glance nervously at the frighteningly large turnout of non-members on the other side of the field. On their cue the girls came out in a line, wearing their pine straw formal wear. Women in the factories re-made these every year and spent weeks tailoring them to each girl. It was part of the tradition the Farmers liked to uphold, to commemorate the material that made their town rich. Last were the pine straw bathing suits. The beaming girls strutted onstage past a shadowed figure in the left wing. She held the sparkling tiara which glinted like a diamond in a th
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mine. When the girls had lined up on stage right in their final positions, including Mary whose bright, earnest face almost won even the hearts of some of the Association members, the first Miss Spirit of Turpentine floated onstage to much a standing ovation. In her hands she held the envelope that contained the audience’s vote. Her hands shook slightly but she only smiled wider. “Ladies and Gentlemen, Association members and…friends, on this day the Audience has selected the following young lady to be the next Miss Spirit of Turpentine…” she sneered slightly as she tore open the envelope with more haste than usual. She stared at the slip of paper for half a minute while the color drained slowly from her face. Regaining her composure, she announced to the audience, who thought she was just pausing for dramatic effect, “M-mary Newton.” Mary was just as shocked to hear the news as anyone but she strode forward bravely and smiled genuinely at her stony-faced predecessor. Not knowing what to do and because they feared the cheering non-Association people would soon become a mob and rush onto the stage, the stage hands quickly rushed the girls over to the hay bales at the edge of the forest where their pictures were to be taken. Mary’s long legs dangled from the top hay bale, exposing her worker’s sandals for posterity to see. She didn’t feel the heat from the flames at first, because she was so numbingly cold in her bathing suit. It felt like a pocket of warm air you might walk through when going down the road at night. They called them ghost spots – spots where a spirit has just been. Suddenly the other two girls were running through the crowd of onlookers as fast as if a snake had bitten them and in front of everyone’s eyes all three hay bales went up in flames with Mary still on top. She was pulled away and rushed to the town hospital. The crowd of workers didn’t take long to form an actual full-scale mob with their fury aimed at the terrified-looking Association members. The next day, when someone thought to look, they found no trace of the silver tiara.
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Battle Grounds by Kaitlyn Spotts Based On: A Jar of Coffee Beans from the American Civil War, Found in the Hargrett Library Digital Collections
A dirt covered jar rolls towards me from the direction of a fellow soldier whose name I can't remember. Its contents shake within while the dust begins to rise. “New ammo stolen from the Union,” he says with a wide smile, lines crinkling into his cheeks forming wrinkles which look strange and out of place. He can't be much younger than me, maybe twenty or twenty-one. I put the jar right side up then grab the empty battered mug he pushes my way. I pick it up from the broken wooden table covered with a two-week old edition of the Southern Banner, a dried out pot of stray beans left over from dinner, and some precious cigarettes that have been set aside for after our next battle. The soldier pulls a dirty handkerchief out of his pocket and makes a quick swipe through the pot of beans before handing it to me. I reach for it with hesitation, it's always been my wife who's made the coffee. Loosening the lid on the jar I empty a small amount of beans into the pot, each one striking the bottom like a tiny bullet. All of them vary in size and shape, and are still tinged with veins of bright green contrasting against the light brown. I make my way over to the small wood stove and I try to mimic her gentle hands as I begin to stir the beans, waiting for them to turn a milky, chocolate brown. The rich scent fills the air and reminds me of home. I close my eyes and try to imagine her subtle scent of lavender and rosemary overpowering it all, but it never comes. Once roasted, I crush them with the same care she would, ignoring the fact that I'm using the end of a bayonet to do so. I pour a little into each of our mugs before boiling some water. The first sip is bitter and burns, but I try and focus on the heat and faint flavor I've been craving. The warmth sinks into me as I feel the familiar indentations on the mug from use and wear in the midst of battle. Clouds of smoke drift through the campsite and into our own covered canvas, wafting the ever present dirty metallic smell of gunpowder and sweat, with a stinging scent of chicory. I walk towards the entrance and lift the flap of the canvas before stepping outside. The other soldier joins me in the unnerving silence that enfolds our abandoned campsite. It’s been two weeks of quiet, two weeks since the Union last attacked. But the look on the General Bratton's face at dinner told me this solace wouldn't last for much longer. “You know, if this is what war is, it’s not so bad.” His raspy chuckle rattles me and I don’t respond as he takes a long sip. Samuel, or Sam, I finally remember. I think of him shaking my hand that first day weeks before, an introduction blurred by the accompanying memory of my wife proposing the same name to me with hope and pleading. It was her father's name and she hoped to pass it on, that is, if it was a boy.
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The next moment the sky seems to explode above us. The stars disappear behind smoke and red and gold sparks. Faces begin popping out of neighboring tent flaps all wearing the same terrified expression. The sound of gunshots ring through my ears and the ground below our feet vibrates with an intensity that causes us both to grip onto the unstable canvas tent behind us. I take a deep breath and one last burning sip before letting go of the half full mug and ducking back into the tent to grab my gun.
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The Clay Eater by Julia Stacy Based on a photograph titled "Clay Eater" by David Lewis Earnest
I imagined him walking along the edge of the forest, the scent of that wet, earthy substance stirring some hungry demonic being inside him. The clay eater’s eyes shone white every time I saw him, a real light milky hue, but I pictured them burning red as the earth he relished when he got to eating the stuff. Did he bury his face in the mud and eat it like a dog? Did he roll it in balls and pop it in his mouth like grapes? Did he sink his teeth into it like it was a thick, juicy pork chop? I was sure he had a ritual of some sort—head in the leaves, sniffing for the reddest, wettest clay, his eyes ablaze as he delves for the most succulent chunk he can find, then chewing it in a slow rhythm as his frenzy fades like the dew at dawn. As he came closer to the houses with the forest behind him, I looked at him from my porch and wondered if his stomach felt heavy and full, or if a hunger still remained. I tried to look him in the eyes, to see the fiery demon inside him, but he never lifted them from the ground. I was expecting someone more akin to a wild, raving savage. He just looked dirty and tired like the rest of us. His face wore the same crackled canvas of sun-worn skin and his shoulders slumped under the weight of something god-awful heavy. Feeling the emptiness in my stomach, I walked inside to join my family for dinner. I knocked the caked clay from my boots and stepped inside to sit at the table. We bowed our heads in silent prayer and I picked the reddest, bloodiest piece of roast I could find. I never tasted it, but tried to eat until my stomach became heavy and full.
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Heirlooms by Rachel Stoker Based on "A demolished home in Gainesville, Georgia (1936)",
Table set with heirloom tomatoes and a familiar side of prayer when the sky asks for the rest before seconds are even served. The licking tongue laps up the roof, the painted walls, living room couches, stained glass lampshade, nightstand locked with love letters, coaxing out the forgotten sighs, the whispers, even that weird dream of the cat eating the dead dog, the dog buried without a leash, perks its head up, woofs, says "I will not be me when you next meet me", only a dream, but that dog had once died, the twisted torrent of churning breath chewing that dirt, can't tell which soil is the soiled, knowing what was buried under the floorboards rip apart from each other, can almost hear the ghosts of feet prism across the ether, the little ones that happened, may have happened, won't happen because the shovel that buried the dog, that pruned those heirloom tomatoes collides into the table, all being thrust towards the heavens, things fading from familiar but this is not destruction, this is dissection measuring home memory inch by inch picking apart the pieces holding each only for a moment up in air poised as a question not is it good but can it be better disassemble for detachment paradise wasn’t just found in Eden wasn't just found once to not eat the corporate apple is the gift of the ruined shovel to let the dead tree still stand to garden with bare hands.
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Blow Oskar by Shannon Stults Based on R. A. Miller’s “Blow Oskar,” Brown Media Exhibit
Reuben sits by the quiet, empty street, waiting. His cousin Oskar, four years older than him, comes down the road on his bike, a blaze of red, white, and blue. He honks his shiny bike horn. Reuben’s heart races. His body buzzes with energy as Oskar tells what adventures he has planned for today, searching for wild jungle beasts in the small patch of woods behind the house. Smooth Georgia clay slips between their fingers, they take time to carefully trace out their hunting marks. They hunt until the sun sets and Reuben’s mom calls them inside for dinner. The game is over. But Oskar is already planning the next one, and Reuben can’t wait to hear that horn again. Sitting. Racing. Waiting. Blow, Oskar. Years later, Reuben stands in the early morning darkness. In less than an hour it will be just him and Oskar, soaking up nature with a beer, a boat, and a fishing rod. Enjoying the quiet, the memories, the adventures. He remembers the day Oskar drove up in that clunky, faded orange car, honking the horn that the whole town would come to recognize. It was in that car that Oskar taught Reuben how to drive. It was that car that made Reuben late to his own wedding, his cousin and best man spotted with oil after finally getting the car to start. That car that rushed them to the hospital the night Reuben’s wife went into labor. And it’s that car he waits for now. Kissing his wife goodbye, he listens for the familiar horn. Listening. Remembering. Waiting. Blow, Oskar. After the funeral, he stands by the road with a beer in hand, dripping as the rain hammers against him. Droplets fall, running over his eyes and dancing with the salty tears. A bitter waltz. His wife watches him from the door, calls him to come inside. He doesn’t. Instead he pictures it in his mind, over and over. His cousin, his friend, caught within the mangled metal, squeezed like clay in Death’s stony palm. Oskar’s final adventure. Reuben lifts his bottle in a toast to the dark angel and its victory over one man. He takes a sip. He’ll never hear that horn again. And yet he waits there, falling to his knees like a little boy by the empty street. Sinking. Begging. Waiting. Blow, Oskar.
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Bits of Us by W illiam W ickey Based on “WSB-TV news-film clip of Dr. William G. Anderson, Albany Movement president, speaking about his experience jailed for a just cause and of Marion Page, Albany Movement executive secretary, speaking about results of negotiations with the city in a mass meeting held at Shiloh Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia, 1961 December 18”
She in some small corner waits. My name for her name: Katrine. Unusual, perhaps. Not a major player, no. Still, I spied her winking in the glass. She was never meant to mean so much to me. But with enough pressure and electricity debris can transcend history. Shiloh is her city, the capital of ghosts. To be jailed for a Just cause has been called a purging of the soul. Humming on a draft, song brought her to the stage and also drew her back. She is not so hidden really. Her or her friends. Lovely black constellations. Forgotten shadows like the clouds that cover our world in heavenly rotations. Bygone bits of people and bristly bits of tile. Immortal they abound, colorless as sound, file after file. A brave cosmic jewel like a fallen leaf in a Venusian wading pool the same way pollution makes the sky more beautiful. Though dead eyes shun her, and live eyes will never love her, I imagine that her mother would be perplexed she was discovered. Let us talk about her fashion. Wrinkled into action. I may excuse her brusque address given the weight of her repress. Being is her statement. I wonder how lonely she is lying in that basement. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. Psalm thirty-seven: the promise of heaven. Those who wait on the Lord, shall inherit the earth with a quiet smirk. The Lord loves justice, and does not forsake His saints; they are preserved forever. Subtlety is pivotal to the endeavor yet hers is not original whatsoever. She snuck into to heaven like a byte on a mite on a mouse on a boat in the port of Savannah. I thought that I might ask her: “How were you so clever?” I convinced myself she lie there waiting in repose with a treasure map to Eden, I suppose. I credit her with nothing less, so putting theory to the test, I unspool tape in mad distress and alas she is not there.
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